FAQ

About TPRSSS Program(Please scroll down for the Chinese version)

1. I see you have the symbols in your program. What are these for?

One of the best practices in foreign language learning is to limit translation to and from the target language as much as we can. These symbols will help students understand the meaning without translation them to English. They work great when combining with TPR.

2. How different are they from pictures?

While colorful pictures look nice, but there will be different interpretations to the same picture as every one may focus on a different part of a picture. But for each symbol, there is mostly one message to convey.

3. Do you use Pinyin and Hanzi to go with the symbols?

In the beginning, don’t use either of them. It is to achieve understanding of meaning.

4. How about Pinyin? Why not?

Pinyin is achieved step by step. Firstly, if given too early, there is too much information for the students. They don’t know which one to focus on. Secondly, they maybe affected by some English pronunciation.

5. Then when do we add Pinyin?

Teachers can manually write Pinyin on top to let the students to know that there is this system named Pinyin to help students pronounce a Hanzi. The Pinyin also reminds them the pronunciation of the word. For example, when teachers put a “j” on top of 姐， and “m” on top of 妹， the j and m remind them how to say the two words.

6. Regarding the colorful story with six -panel pictures, when do you show them to the students?

In the beginning, don’t show the pictures to the students. Instead, teach the vocabulary with TPR and other methods. Put a symbol of picture next to the new word instead of English translation.
By the time the six-panel pictures are shown, the students should be able to understand the whole story already. But now instead of telling the story to the students, ask the students to look at the pictures and say something about them, using the vocabulary taught. A good strategy I recommend is "see, think, wonder".

7. How about the stories formed by symbols? How to use those?

After teaching the vocab and some structures, let students read the story by looking and pointing to the symbols. This is to make sure they know what they are saying. Even when some students have accidentally memorized the story, they still should point to the symbols, which now serve as presentation notes.

8. What are the black and white stories for?

They can be used as an anchor activity. When teachers do one on one assessment, students can be coloring the pictures. Allow the students to make changes to the pictures so as to recreate the story, for example, changing the color, numbers and names to the original story.

9. At the end of each story, what will the students be able to do?

Some students will be able to not only understand and retell the original story; they will be able to create a story of their own from the original story – Exceeding expectation
Some students will be able to understand and fluently retell the original story. – Meeting expectation
Some students will be able to understand and retell the story with some pauses and imperfection. – Almost meeting expectation
Some students won’t be able to tell the story even with help of the symbols – Concerns

10. There is a text with pinyin and a text without pinyin on the back of Let’s Talk, why did you put them at the end but not in the front?

Three reasons:

To apply to the principal of “Oral proficiency proceeds written literacy”

To meet the needs of different parents who need materials to help their children to learn Chinese.

To make it easier for teachers to differentiate in class.

11. How about the two other versions of text in your program?

No matter how many levels we establish in a Chinese program at international schools, we still have proficiency levels in a class. The two versions serve as tools to help teachers to “differentiate by content”.

About the Author

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Graduated from Xiamen University with a BA and State
University of New York with an MS, Xiong Huali has been
teaching languages since 1983. While teaching international
school Chinese programs, Huali conducted an extensive
research on teaching the four basic skills. The songs and stories that
she published have been very popular among
international schools in and outside of Singapore.

Huali hopes that her research will help schools, teachers and
parents, especially the students of Chinese to enjoy learning Chinese language.